Suffolk Registrar Awaits Political Fever

August 31, 1989|By GEORGE PAASWELL Staff Writer

SUFFOLK — The summer political doldrums, which usually last until Labor Day, are about to end.

Candidates at all levels of the ballot will make appearances in Hampton Roads, and some even in Suffolk. L. Douglas Wilder, the Democratic candidate for governor, is scheduled to come to the Oct. 4 Shrimp Feast, the kickoff event for the city's Peanut Fest. At the event, he may run into his opponent, Republican J. Marshall Coleman.

Coleman has been to Suffolk twice since his primary victory, and local party officials are working with his campaign to try to bring him in again for the Peanut Fest parade Oct. 7.

Voter registration is picking up slightly, according to City Registrar Patsy Warren. While the summer is typically a slow season for politics, September is a key month for registration.

"It's going to pick up in September. It's picked up this week," Warren said.

In 1985, when Gerald L. Baliles ran against Wyatt B. Durrette Jr. in the governor's race, 22,764 Suffolk residents were registered to vote. Nearly 59 percent of those registered, 13,378, cast a ballot.

The result was 7,937 voting for Baliles and 5,037 for Durrette.

This year, 21,638 people are registered to vote, with more trickling in every day, Warren said.

"At this point, it has not been as aggressive as I thought it would be," said the city's chairman of the Democratic Party, Ronald Williams.

"It has been more lackluster than I would have expected, but it's bound to get more intense in the last 60 days," Williams said.

Wilder will be in town "to eat with 5,500 of his closest friends" at the Shrimp Feast, Williams said.

"It will become a very exciting race," said Tom Raines, Republican Party chairman for the 4th District, which includes Suffolk. "Right now, July and August are the political doldrums; most people are really not interested in politics."

Glenn Martin, the city's Republican Party chairman, said his party has a strategic planning meeting scheduled for Tuesday, at which the party will decide on its course of action for the last two months of the race.

To become more easily accessible and visible, the registrar's office recently moved from the School Board building to an office at 434 W. Washington St.

Besides having more space, the office is more noticeable. A wooden placard sitting in front reads, in big block letters, REGISTER TO VOTE HERE.

About six to eight people a day do just that, Warren said. Many, she said, are concerned about the sheriff's race, the only contested race in the city. Incumbent Sheriff J. Irving Baines is running against challengers Police Capt. Raleigh Isaacs and Paul C. Gillis.